5 Reasons I Cannot Get Down with Jersey Shore

I read that a Jersey Shore spinoff is coming, called Wicked Summer.

PLEASE don’t let me get sucked into it.

I’m just coming to terms with the fact that I watched the whole first season of Jersey Shore. All 9 episodes. PLUS the reunion special. I also Jersey Shored myself. And I discovered my Jersey Shore nickname: Jenny Pepperoni.

The whole experience was so traumatizing, only now can I speak about it publicly.

If you have been living under a rock for the last six months and are oblivious to the cultural train wreck that is Jersey Shore, let me explain it in MTV’s own language...

If the Real World is the story of seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real (I just typed that from memory, btw… scary...), then Jersey Shore is the story of eight guidos picked to live in Seaside Heights and have their fights taped to find out what happens when juiced-up gorillas stop popping steroids and start pumping fists.

Needless to say, a love letter to the Garden State, it is not.

I guess I kept watching because I was waiting for it to get better. To find something remotely redeeming about this rag-tag gaggle of goons who carted all their earthly possessions down the Parkway in a Hefty bag. But it never did get better. It got progressively worse.

Here are the 5 myths I just couldn’t see past:

MYTH #1: The cast was from New Jersey.
REALITY: Only 2 of them were! Like the Jerz doesn’t have enough problems? We need 5 bozos from New York and 1 from Rhode Island (I’m talking to YOU, Pauly D!) mucking up our already questionable national reputation? Thanks a lot, MTV.

MYTH #2: Italians are loud.
REALITY: Douchebags are loud! They come in all shapes, sizes. And nationalities.

MYTH #3: People name their bodyparts.
REALITY: No they don’t. Calling your twelve-pack abs “The Situation” is a lame attempt to distract from your Toucan Sam face or your thinning hair (aka “The Problem”).

MYTH #4: Tanning is a way of life.
REALITY: So is skin cancer. Look, I’m not really a fan of the faux tan (recall my Ooompa Loompa incident), but having a personal tanning bed in your home or going tanning in a SALON daily when you are spending the summer at the BEACH is a sign of stupidity, not status.

MYTH #5: Your hair should defy gravity.
REALITY: You shouldn’t look like you’re smuggling biscotti under your bangs. So Snookie/Snickers, just say “no” to your home-grown Bumpit. And on the topic of dumb looking hair, Pauly D., human beings do not buy hair gel by the gross (that’s 144 buckets of Dippity-Don’t to you). And finally, Vinny, please fill in those eyebrows. You look like Joan Crawford.


Ah. I feel better now. The first step towards Reality TV Recovery is admitting I have a problem.

So what do you think? Did my love of Jersey cloud my view of Jersey Shore?